In digital data transmission the problem occurs of data being lost during transmission as a result of bad transmission connections or low bandwidths. With packet-oriented data traffic in particular, incorrect or lost data leads to a loss of complete packets, in which case the content is no longer able to be reproduced correctly. Especially problematic is the loss of data with so-called multimedia applications, in which the data is often to be displayed in real time without delay at the receiver.
What are referred to as broadcast and multicast transmissions are known from the prior art in which data is sent from a single emitter and can be received by a plurality of receivers. What are known as Reed-Solomon codes can be used for error protection in these data transmissions. Redundancy is inserted into the data with the aid of the Reed-Solomon codes, so that if the data losses at the receiver are not too great the original data can be reconstructed. Known error protection methods employing Reed-Solomon codes are suitable for example for the terrestrial data transmission in accordance with the DVB-T (DVB-T=Digital Video Broadcast—Terrestrial) standard and with the compatible DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast—Handheld) standard. However problems arise when using other data transmission mechanisms. The use of the future Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (MBMS), in which a broadcast data transmission over mobile radio channels is made possible, is especially problematic, since for a data transmission to a mobile receiver there is no guarantee of the data packets arriving at the receiver in the sequence in which they were sent by the emitter.